We stayed overnight in Billings Montana, which is about half way through the state and right about where the hills start to get grassier and more pronounced. The city itself smelled foul from the oil refineries around the area. Montana is a big oil state and they do a lot of drilling there. I just thought driving by the refineries was kind of cool. It looked like some weird post apocalyptic pocket in the middle of this mild mid western town.
The next morning we wanted to head to Yellowstone National Park and started heading down there via I think Bearclaw Pass, but the road was snowed out. Yes, I know what you're thinking... apparently Yellowstone is snowed out for all but a few months of the year, which I didn't know before and was bummed about.
I was looking forward to seeing some bison and geysers up close again. Maybe sometime next year if I have the money and a weekend off I can mosey over there. it's a beautiful area, treacherous and awesome, and really high up, like 12,000 foot elevation high up in the rockies.
My mom and I made a U-Turn back to this place called Red Lodge as she called Yellowstone to see what the road conditions were. Chains were either heavily recommended or required on all roads up there. We had a full car with my computer and precious other things like my house plants, and so we decided against it.
I was hungry and decided to wander over to a pizza place called the Red Lodge Pizza Co. there pizza was fine, but the waitresses dinked around for about ten minutes while I waited for my pizza cleaning stuff, and kept asking me if I'd been helped, to which I said repeatedly "yes". I give them a B on Pizza but an F on customer service.
We zoomed back up to I-90 and then over through Idaho, which was also more of the same. I didn't think that tall majestic mountains would get boring, but man, I was really ready for a change of scenery after 800 miles of sameness by the side of the road. But, also, I took a few really nice photos while driving through Montana:
We then stayed in Spokane the next night, which went fine. The beds were a bit uncomfortable, but they had an exercise room which I decided to use. Sitting in a car with numb-butt for ten hours makes you want to do anything else besides sit around on your butt watching TV. So I watched TV while on a tred mill. Does that make me a true American? I think the answer is yes.
It was later that night I started to have some really melancholy doubts about what I'm doing. Had a few moments of sadness when I think about Minnesota and missing the people there that I won't get to see up close again for quite a while. I may be suspicious of Facebook, but it also does provide a really great channel for staying in touch with many of the people I love and won't be able to see for a while.
We drove through eastern Washington, which was cool, then down zig zagged over the Columbia river and through the Columbia river gorge towards Portland. The whole area had these really amazing wind farm fields as far as you could see in every direction. My mom asked me if I'd like to pull over and take some pictures, and so I did.
Today I got to see my dog Greta again for the first time in a while. She has this weird and adorable habit of going into my room when I'm here and taking out one of my socks, then walking around the house whining and she holds it in her mouth. Usually she'll either put in under my pillow, on top of my pillow, or on her dog bed and then leave.
I realized I missed her a lot upon seeing her. While there waiting for the caretakers to go get her I wandered around the little cat area where they keep adoptable kitties. There was this ridiculously fat cat who automatically loved me, and lots of really adorable kittens. I just wanted to adopt them all.
Back in Oregon now, it feels good and bad. It's been physically painful leaving, but I know it was the right decision. It's just that adjustment and change like this is often hard, and I tend to be the weepy type. Now my sights are set on planning for my trip overseas. I have most of my gear together, but I still have a lot to do.
Maybe I'll do a blog post later about preparations for going over seas, that might be kind of cool.
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